I see the Opposition, tertiary level institutions, student bodies, amongst others dramatically voicing their opinions of the government "undecided" decision to make changes to the Gate programme. This programme was established to assist the low and middle income citizens, instead it is being abused for many years.
While the government (both past and present) have only themselves to blame for allowing such an ambitious, deserving programme to become a runaway horse with taxpayers' money, the institutions and students need to take some responsibility as well, after all they were the ones benefiting for all these years without proper accountability.
Given the state of the economy, the Government needs to have the Gate programme function as a partial funding system across the entire tertiary level for both foreign and local institutions. Students need to be held accountable for their own educational success, not the government.
Instead of earning an income to spend on costumes or fetes, the students should be paying at least 40 per cent of their own tuitions.No student should be allowed to repeat a course three or four times because they refuse to apply themselves or because they are not responsible for paying the associated fees.
Various tertiary level programmes must have a time limit for completion; there should not be students taking six-plus years to complete an associate degree programme unless they took leave from the programme.
The Government needs to have better managerial systems in place for such programmes especially when it comes to disbursement of taxpayers' money. This government needs to put the well-being of the country first, not the loud-talkers of today.
People need to start being more appreciative of the opportunities being afforded to them. Stop abusing a good thing.
To the students, if you do not want to earn a degree do not apply for the funding then drop out of the course without informing your sponsor (Gate).
Denise Griffith,
St James